A Worm's a Worm 53 



"Somebody took it 'cause the wooden case is gone too. 

 Gosh, oh gosh." He had slumped to a stricken man of sixty. 



"Maybe, if you wait around, somebody will bring it back." 



"No use at all," he sobbed. "Anybody who would take a 

 twelve dollar and forty cent pole would never come back. 

 What will my dad say? He didn't want me to take it in the 

 first place." I watched his bent figure until it disappeared 

 behind the athletic pavilion. 



But it was not all to be tragedy. I encountered another 

 fishing party near the crew house. A young mother in a blue 

 "clam-digger" outfit had brought her two children, a brown 

 hatless boy about six and a plump little brunette of four, on 

 an adventure into the wild. A lunch basket stood nearby. All 

 three sat on an old bulkhead, legs hanging over the edge, 

 neatly peeled willow poles in hand, and eager eyes intent 

 upon the bobbing corks. The little girl called to me: 



"We're fishing," she said, "and we're catching fish." She 

 pointed to water-filled jars with bullheads swimming in them. 



"We have seven," said the mother. "I caught one, but each 

 of the children has three." The children looked happy and 

 important as she said it. 



"Are you going to take them home?" I asked. 



"Oh, no. We've decided to let the fish see how it is up 

 here on the shore and then we'll put them back." 



The canoe was soon out of the canal and in open water 

 along the margin of the islands which had been formed when 

 the inside channel had been dredged. Two men were casting 

 bits of red cloth toward the edge of the cattails. I pulled a 

 little closer. 



"Do you mind my watching?" I asked. 



A bass voice came from an enormous man in a red shirt: 



"It's O.K. There's no law T to stop you even if we wanted to 

 —and we don't." 



The other man, Nordic in appearance and imposing in a 

 new blue-checked jumper said: 



